Things to worry about today

“An army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers, are terrorizing the entire community – lying, bullying and manipulating their way around the internet for profit and attention.”

Did you read the article? The accusations are pretty intense for the few individuals he’s talking about, and there seems to be quite a bit of evidence to back up the manipulation and conflicts of interest. I don’t draw the same conclusions the author does about the collective group of journalists and game developers, but I do see the trend in “digital panhandlers” that we’re seeing who are trying to live off donations from the blogosphere instead of getting a real job.

Quite a few of those ‘Living off donations’ bloggers have done pretty damn well. Just on the left, look at three: Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Eschaton – all started as one man blogs with donations providing their only revenue. Now Kos and TPM have built their blogs into serious small companies with advertising rates that would make most newspapers green with envy. TPM has even evolved to a partial pay wall site. Even Eschaton, who’s maintained the classic one man blog model lives – quite well indeed – on his ad revenue but still takes donations.

Those are all lefty blogs of course – but look at Instapundit, Red State and lordy, just look at Drudge. And there are dozens more just like them.
I don’t see how the donations model is much different than the underlying principle of subscribing to certain newspapers or magazines. You value something, you pony up some cash.

As a capitalist and individualist I’m fine with the idea of people paying what they want to for things that they want. I do, however, see a difference in how the bloggers you mention grew nto journalistic entities whereas it seems like these others aren’t much more than “slacktivists”, at least for the time being, and at that are giving what they call journalism a bad name through their bias and collusion.

If they grow up, and grow somehow into the likes of TPM or Kos where they are employing people and attracting advertising dollars, then hooray for capitalism and free speech but for now, to me they’re just bums and if you look at the evidence I think the author is right – that they’re “lying, bullying and manipulating their way around the internet for profit and attention”. I don’t think the other bloggers you mentioned built their businesses or followings in the same way – they appear to have had a little more integrity.

Might seem like an overreaction by a Breitbart right-winger, but I don’t think he’s as far off the mark in his characterization.

Vern: It looks to be a small, very specialized world and I guess the very exploitive women he mentions loom large in it, but I did read the whole thing (disclosure: only after you prodded me!) and what I see is the classic con; they’re in it for a buck and the attention – as he says.
My issue with the article was the (irony alert) hyperbolic language in the opening paragraph describing “an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers . . “
An ‘army’? And their cohort tech bloggers (men if I’m reading it correctly)? They seem a lot less ‘PC’ and a lot more interested in the old sexual bribe.
Gotta admit I actually got lost reading the article – it’s such a different world and so unfamiliar to me, and I didn’t understand the basis of some of the charges. But it’s fascinating in its difference. I didn’t follow links either, but I do wonder where the ‘left wing’ and “journalists defending their ideological allies’ charge comes from? Maybe it’s just something I can’t discern as an outsider. Unless feminism is seen as left-wing?

As I understand it from a number of sources this woman launched a crappy app about Depression that got praised by a bunch of reporters who it was eventually discovered that she was sleeping with, and when any one panned the app (for either the app itself, or her launching it trying to capitalize on Robin Williams’ suicide) they were attacked by these same guys as being “anti-women”.

From there, it’s the usual “left wing media conspiracy” charge from the right but in the gaming world it’s an extremely polarized world right now – radical feminists and radical anti-feminists going to war over the objectification and misogyny that currently exists in video games, and what the impact of it actually is.

On the one hand you have a bunch of guys hiding behind their anonymity talking about “r*ping” women for speaking out against the objectification and violence against women in games, and on the other hand you have a bunch of men (and women) claiming that these feminist bloggers (which this Zoe Quinn was before she launched the game) are deliberately exaggerating the rhetoric and the “threats” simply to stay in the limelight and raise more dollars, and that left-leaning journalists at Slate, HuffPo, BBC, and the like are simply accepting these women’s claims at face value without actually investigating the facts. On that point I agree with the Breitbart author that this bias exists and shouldn’t go unchecked, but I don’t believe it’s near as big of a problem or threat as he’s making it out to be. As far as I’m concerned, these so-called “men” making the comments they are towards women online deserve whatever attacks in return that they’re getting whether fair or not, true or not.

So it’s more of the old ‘people behaving badly’ and then other people piling on . . . ideology, defensiveness, revenge – if they were countries they’d be facing off on a battlefield. Toss in misogyny with some ‘cry rape’ stuff . . .

As I understand it, pretty much. Actually, one of the bloggers the author is talking about said that negative comments are worse than rape.

Anyways, the media bias is one thing but when the criticism of anything gets blown way out of proportion and becomes all hyperbole it makes the entire issue seem like a joke. Both hard core right- and left-wingers need to understand that, I think.

And they’re just getting started! Expect many more to be jumped before the issue settles somewhere in-between individual rights and women’s rights.

You should see some the stuff that’s spewing back and forth right now (I’m doing some research on female leadership in corporations so I’m checking out a bunch of the feminist blogs). The radical feminists on the one side and the whiny MRA’s on the other – quite the gong show.

Vern – It seems to me the ‘radical’ feminists are increasingly irrelevant to most women. They were essential for decades, but now can indeed sound shrill, especially to much younger women. When I look to the major women’s groups in 2014, I don’t see the anger or resentment or whatevver that was core to the movement in the 70’s and 80’s. They’re all grown up now and work better within the system. NOw they’re lawyers and lobbyists. We aren’t there yet but they’re the ones who will get it done.

“We aren’t there yet but they’re the ones who will get it done.”
I agree on both points. I think it’s always more effective overall to fix the system from the inside rather than try and fight it from the outside.